The OTC 1.0.4 Edition -- Episode 18: The Kerbin Station Timesink

[Bev7787]

Can't wait for the next part

[Geschosskopf]

First, great to see the DORK up close and personal!

Glad you appreciated it. I was afraid it might seem too much like boasting to show it off, but I am rather proud of it. While actually flying on Duna is now incredibly easy compared to pre-1.x, the DORK is still a rather complex vehicle that took quite a lot of whiskey to beat into shape.

Second, I guess Lagertrix would not be the designated pilot for this craft?

Sadly, no. First, Lagertrix is actually a Scientist so was testing all those parts of the DORK. Second, she and Val work for X-Labs, an offshore (as in a separate sandbox game) subsitiary of the OTC. All testing happens there so the disasters are out of sight of the press .

Third, that is a lot of asteroids and comets? Does game performance take a hit with that many objects to track?

No performance issue there that I can see. Yet. The game was getting wonky there for a while, low FPS in general and crashing frequently, but it recently occurred to me that I'd updated several large mods (UKS and Space-Y, especially) a couple times each over the past few weeks. So I went into the ATM cache folder yesterday and deleted the subfolders for updated mods, forcing ATM to redo them. Problem solved.

However, because it's extremely unlikely that I'll ever mess with any of these asteroids, I do plan to stop tracking most of them next time I fire up the game. I'm just going to keep those that can be classified as comets because they're interesting, then maybe do a Rosetta-type mission to one of them just for giggles.

Great update! Although I would have to say that, for the love of kerbality, let's get some NOMS to Ansen! No Kerbal deserves to go hungry! Especially grad students! [source: personal experience]

Well, Ansen's going to starve at least until DISCO stabilizes in LKO in a year or so. There's no rendezvousing with him before then. After that, however, things will depend on where the probe core is on DISCO and honestly, it's been so long since I built the ship that I've forgotten. If it's between the capsule and the parachute, then the probe can do the landing and Ansen will get fed once he's on the ground. Eventually. The Senior Scientists will no doubt keep him in statis until they're done studying the effects of long-term hibernation in space, and can do this cheaply because they won't need any anesthesia during the dissection . OTOH if, as I suspect, the probe core is actually in the 2.5m service bay, it will be staged off after the de-orbit burn so Ansen will have be awake to open the chutes. In which case some luckless engineering grad student will have to go up there and physically place some NOMS in DISCO. This will have to be done via KIS on EVA because DISCO lacks a docking port. Only time will tell, however.

As to the well-being of grad students, since when did anybody care about that? A grad student is the chattel slave on one professor and the rented mule of all the others so his life consists of nonstop, backbreaking labor, and unremitting verbal, mental, emotional, and physical abuse, with little or no sleep. Thus, Ansen's current predicament is actually better than the lot of most grad students, because he has a chance to catch up on his sleep now .

Besides, grad students also subsist on a diet of coffee, nicotine, doughnuts, aspirin, and antacids, so I'm actually surprised Ansen ate any of the NOMs at all. In my universe, NOMs are known as "junk" by the lower deck, and provide an altogether more nutritious diet than anything a grad student would normally eat. In fact, I think Ansen deliberately threw out the rest of his rations specifically to avoid eating them and so he could start his nap that much sooner .

Can't wait for the next part

Thanks. Hopefully, that won't be long in coming.

Edited August 1, 2015 by Geschosskopf

[Geschosskopf]

EPISODE 10: 2nd Duna Expedition Launch

With the transfer window for Duna fast approaching, it was time to launch and park the 2nd Duna Expedition. This process began with the DORK (Duna Observation and Recon Kite). Vertically launching high-lift aircraft is always something of a design challenge and there are several approaches to the problem. The OTC Boffins, however, prefer using BAM (Bass Ackwards Method) in which the aircraft is at the rear of the lifter to serve as its stabilizing fins, because it's simple, reliable, and projects an aura of brute-force Kerbal engineering.

There are several key points to keep in mind when using BAM:

* The control surfaces of the aircraft should all be disabled prior to launch and through any aerobraking maneuvers later. Of course, you need to remember (or make an in-game note to remind you) to turn them on again prior to reentry.

* Some fairly large control surfaces on the nose of the rocket are pretty much required. They'll still be way smaller than the aircraft's wings, however, so won't upset the aerodynamic balance.

* The lifter stage will probably require substantial RCS authority active throughout the launch.

* BAM works best with 2 identical planes mounted belly-to-belly, so the lift of their wings cancel out.

The DORK's lifter (unofficially dubbed "Shakalaka") violated the last rule, so unavoidably pulled slightly towards the DORK's upper side during launch. The Boffins meant to rotate the whole vehicle on the pad to use this to their advantage but had been drinking so forgot. Thus, during launch, the whole rig drifted slightly south of east. Fortunately, the Boffins noticed this in time to roll the rocket 180^ while the air was still thick enough for this to work, so that in it drifted back nearly to a due-east heading. The resulting inclination of the orbit wasn't enough to matter.

The BOOM goes the Shakalaka:

Gotta do some gratuitous explosions

Next, the Boffins sent up the DORK's transfer tug. This was a totally conventional design but when its lifter separated, it got hung up between the nozzles of the LV-Ns, so the gratuitous explosion enveloped the tug itself.

But thanks to the magic of TAC Self-Destruct, which causes no collateral damage, the tug was completely unharmed and soon docked with DORK. Then it ellongated its orbit to shorten its actual transfer burn time and began cooling back down.

Next to go was the DUCTTAPE (DUna Crew Transferrence To Analyze Psychotic Episodes). This will take the mission's crew of 3 there and (hopefully) back again. The name comes from the fact that the only crew space is the 3-seat pod, the Scientists wanting to see what happens to Kerbal brains during such conditions. The Boffins thought this was a great idea as it gave them some freedom in their design, and they came up with something a big more interesting to look at than the conventional cylindrical rocket, with sort of a retro "Krash Gordon" style.

The crew consisted of Artificersmate 3rd Class Sanie, who had previously gone on the Mun Beast mission and was now thoroughly institutionalized. She was in nominal command of Meglin (striking for sciencemate) and Kerburry (striking for artificersmate), both newly pressganged. They have enough "junk in the trunk" to last 3.5 New years, plus whatever got sent out aboard DUMBASS in the 1st Duna Flotilla. However, thinking of Ansen, DUCTTAPE's probe core is safely wedged between the capsule and the main chute so as long as the crew can remain functional long enough to get back in it after the mission, they'll have no trouble landing back on Kerbin.

Next off was the DUFF (DUna Fuel Filler), simply a collenction of empty 2.5m fuel tanks mounted on the huge rover wheels. Its job is to move refined product from the mine to whatever needs it. The massive 5m fairing base was barely sufficient to cover the DUFF and it required beaucoup control authority to keep the rocket going in the right direction. Upon arrival at Duna, the ungainly rover will simply fall from orbit relying entirely on parachutes. You can (at least for the time being) get away with such things on Duna .

The actual mining and refining will be done by the DUMB (DUna Mining Base). It's just a lander with the ISRU stuff aboard and a cupola for whichever artificersmate gets stuck running the machinery. It's got both provisions and a greenhouse so can do this for a long time.

Of course, mining would be impossible without first knowing where to find Ore, so the 2nd Duna Expedition also includes a SCANsat.

The overall mission plan calls for a lander to take the crew down to the surface initially and bring them back up when it's time to leave. The design of DUCTTAPE made the Boffins want to get decorative with the lander, too, so they originally designed the lander based on Mk2 parts for more of that "Krash Gordon" look, and they called this LUDDITE (Lander, Utility, Duna, Doing It Totally Extravagantly). It looked cool, it worked fine in almost all aspects of its mission, but it contained a fatal flaw which the Boffins were unable to solve. Namely, that when coasting up after MEKO, before even leaving the atmosphere, with the shp as a whole cooling down, the short Mk2 cargo bay amidships would suddenly, inexplicably, spike up to an extremely high temperature. And while the cargo bay itself somehow survived this, the parts in and around it did not. So something important would explode and doom the lander, after which the cargo bay heat instantly dropped back down to normal as mysteriously as it had heated up. It was as if it demanded a sacrifice, so the Boffins called this "Kraken Heat".

No amount of rearranging components, adding radiators, or anything else would solve the Kraken Heat problem. It was really bewildering because Mk2 cargo bays had been used many times previously with no problem. In fact, the DORK itself is built around one. But time was pressing so ultimately the Boffins threw in the towel, junking the whole Mk2-based lander idea and quickly slapping together a totally boring, conventional lander using 2.5m parts. Because this whole process reminded the Boffins of the opening credits of their favorite movie, "Monty Kerman and the Sacred Shotglass", they named the new lander the LLUDDITE (Llama Lander, Utility, Duna, Designed In Total Exigency).

The pic above shows another type of gratuitous explosion the Boffins have come to enjoy. It turns out that when you mount 1.25m SRBs on the Space-Y radial decouplers with the built-in Sepratrons, the boosters arc out gracefully and then curve back in to collide far behind the rocket . This only happens with the 1.25m SRBs, the 2.5m SRBs sadly just going out sideways.

Finally, just to be sure there's enough supplies, to restock DUMBASS for the next big mission, and to pave the way for future expansion of the station, the Boffins also sent up what they call the NOMS Module. This not only has 2 greenhouses but also adds significant fuel tankage and docking ports to the station.

So that's the 2nd Duna Expedition all up and ready to go. It consists of 8 ships as follows:

DORK $333,506 (including its tug)

DUCTTAPE $310,939

DUFF $398,355

DUMB $266,872

SCANsat $127,741

LLUDDITE $190,992

NOMS $148,349

MagSat $147,845 (launched some time ago)

-------------------------------

Total: $1,924,599

The various contracts at Duna and Ike that these ships will perform will pay $3.9M, so the 2nd Duna Expedition will turn a profit of $2M. Not bad. Most of this will be reinvested in setting up an Ike-based refueling infrastructure, probably at the next window. The OTC also has some long-term investments at other planets due to mature in the next few months to years which will add more millions to the bank, plus whatever other opportunities come along in the meantime.

Anyway, the overall mission plan is as follows:

Upon arrival, NOMS, DUCTTAPE, and LLUDDITE will dock with DUMBASS and everything else will just park in orbit to await the report of the SCANsat. Once the Boffins have the SCANsat data and pick a general area, DORK will go down in probe mode and find the best specific location. At this point, DUMB and DUFF will go down to establish Duna's first spaceport. Once they're safely on the ground, the crew will finally go down in LLUDDITE. Sanie will then use DUMB and DUFF to refuel LLUDDITE whle Meglin and Kerburry explore the rest of the planet. Assuming they make it back to the spaceport, everybody will then get back in LLUDDITE and return to DUMBASS/DUCTTAPE to await the window to return home. Otherwise, at least Sanie should be able to return, and hopefully she's now institutionalized enough not to sabotage DORK to have more elbow room on the trip home .

Tune in next time to see if any of this even gets underway .

Edited August 4, 2015 by Geschosskopf

[Mister Dilsby]

Your Mortimer must be thrilled that you are making a profit, and are accounting to such a level of precision. I pretty much just try to keep the balance in black, which is not really a problem once there are enough assets on the ground to farm for "data from the surface of ______" contracts as they appear...that pays for all the failed asteroid haulers I must inevitably de-orbit, and other random foolishness.

[Geschosskopf]

Your Mortimer must be thrilled that you are making a profit, and are accounting to such a level of precision

For me, career games are all about the long-range financial planning of empire-building after I've blazed through the tech tree. Empires are EXPENSIVE and the contracts to pay for them take years to complete after the initial investment, so I'm always having to keep in mind what's paying for which rocket . For instance, the Jool MagSat will bring in about $3.5M profit but it's still got 2 years of travel time just to get there. Ansen, meanwhile, is returning with orbital survey contracts that won't complete until he's on the ground. And I've still got the SEPTIC station waiting for the next Eve window, then it's got to get there before it earns anything.

Still, previous ventures have earned enough to fund all the extraneous stuff in the 2nd Duna Expedition, which itself will make money to fund the next wave of empire expansion .

[Geschosskopf]

EPISODE 11: 2nd Duna Expedition and 2nd Eve Flotilla Depart

So the next few weeks went by and it was time for the 2nd Duna Expedition to shove off. 1st off the mark was DUCTTAPE, which meant it would probably arrive last. But that's OK because it was actually one of the last ships needed.

Sanie, Meglin, and Kerburry all seemed quite terrified and got a bit warm until the Boffins reluctantly opened the radiators, which quite spoilt its "Krash Gordon" looks.

Then the Ike MagSat, DUFF, Duna SCANsat, and LLUDDITE, all went off with little fanfare.

The DORK, however, had somehow botched its orbit ellongation with a Pe just barely inside the atmosphere, through which it had been going on rails for a while, fortunately without serious decay. But when it was time for its transfer burn, something had to be done so it had to do some corrections and ended up burning on Kerbin's bright side. Oh well, at least it made for a better pic. Also, Oberth does little for nukes anyway (at least in real life) .

And then the rest of the 2nd Duna Expedition, DUMB and the NOMS Module.

And so the 2nd Duna Expedition was on its way.

At this point, the Boffins checked the contracts and discovered they could get some more money out of the SENTINEL. As it happened, SENTINEL must have been close to one of the nodes where all the asteroids cross Kerbin's orbit because it found all 7 qualifying asteroids in just a week or so. All but one were rather boring, the exception being a serious sundiver more extreme than the one already being tracked, so it took its place.

By now, all of 2nd Duna Flotilla had safely left Kerbin's SOI and most had done their mid-course tweaks. There was a bit Kraken trouble with Duna SCANsat but nothing a quicksave couldn't fix. Thankfully . And by then the next Eve window was opening, contracts for exploring Gilly and building a base there had become available. So the Boffins quickly whipped up said base and hung enough instruments on it to satisfy the exploration contract. This might, one day, become the core of a refueling base, although at present it lacks any ISRU stuff. It's just crew quarters and the ability to stretch its supplies a lot.

An interesting thing happened on the way to Duna..... As the 2nd Duna Flotilla headed out, they crossed paths with DISCO and comatose Ansen of the 1st Duna Flotilla on the way back. Never saw this happen before.

Then the 2nd Eve Flotilla left Kerbin, led by SEPTIC, which got rather warm from its twin Nuclear Lightbulb engines, although the large radiators were able to handle it. Disabling the gimbals had solved the wobble problem experienced earlier so SEPTIC was able to keep its radiators deployed throughout the transfer burn.

The Gilly Lander also had a Nuclear Lightbulb and 2 of the medium-sized radiators. These were almost destroyed by overheating but managed, just barely, to survive. This bodes ill for any significant burns in the hot sunlight at Eve, but fortunately, going to Gilly, it won't need a long burn there.

So here's the great mess going on in space right now (not showing the various interesting asteroids):

Tune in next time for when some of this stuff comes to roost.

Edited August 5, 2015 by Geschosskopf

[Mister Dilsby]

So am I to understand you had two craft intersect accidentally? If so, am amazed you were fast enough on the F1 key to capture that incredible picture!

Me, I have had a spent stage orbiting wrongway for about a game-year now, and am just waiting for it to Kesslerize some poor sod in LKO. No luck yet, but I've seen it whizzing by more than a few times

[Geschosskopf]

So am I to understand you had two craft intersect accidentally? If so, am amazed you were fast enough on the F1 key to capture that incredible picture!

Me, I have had a spent stage orbiting wrongway for about a game-year now, and am just waiting for it to Kesslerize some poor sod in LKO. No luck yet, but I've seen it whizzing by more than a few times

No, nothing bad happened. It's just that the homewardbound ship flew through the gaggle of outwardbound ships. No collisions. I doubt DISCO got closer than a few million clicks to any of the 2nd Duna Expedition. Besides, it was all on rails at the time so nothing would have happened even if there had been a collision. I just thought it was interesting that this conjunction happened at all. I've never seen such a thing.

As to debris in orbit, I haven't had any in a long time thanks to TAC Self-Destruct. But back in the day, I had a spent booster part the hair of a Kerbal on a ladder in LKO. In this game, a booster from my 1st Minmus flyby ship (which happened prior to Episode 1 and unlocking TAC Self-Destruct) got tossed out into Solar orbit. I kept it there as an interesting artifact but sadly, it has recently disappeared without trace. Either the Kraken ate it (hopefully--he needs a sacrifice once in a while) or it came back home to Kerbin.

[Geschosskopf]

EPISODE 12: 2nd DE Arrival Part 1 & The Return of Ansen

While the Boffins waited for the leading elements of the 2nd Duna Expedition to arrive, the Scientists amused themselves trying to find interesting asteroids and comets with the SENTINEL. In this observation period, the found a short-period comet that would do a Jool fly-by. Much speculation occurred about what would happen to it after the pass. Maybe it could be useful as a cycler someday?

But then SOI alarms started going off and the Boffins shoved the Scientists out of the way so they could get back to flying. First of the 2nd Duna Expedition to arrive was DORK, which itself did a fly-by of Ike on the way in. The Boffins hoped that Ike would be so placed again when DUCTTAPE, needing to do a fly-by for a contract, showed up.

DORK aerocaptured rightside up (so its lift was trying to push the nose down) and with brakes out (so their drag was trying to pull the nose up). This, and Duna's air being thin, resulted in a perfectly straight path, unlike the drift towards DORK's upper side experience on launch. DORK chose a Pe of 16km, which resulted in a 300km Ap after the pass. Nothing got the least bit warm during the pass.

After this, DORK parked in a 65km orbit to await further developments. Most of the rest of 2DE must arrive before it will go down.

Next to show up, somewhat surprisingly, was DUCTTAPE carrying the crew of Sanie, Meglin, and Kerburry. Sadly, Ike was on the other side of Duna so no fly-by on the way in (the contract is to return to Kerbin after an Ike fly-by so only DUCTTAPE can do it). Thus, the Ike fly-by would have to happen after the 1st aero pass. DUCTTAPE chose an 18km Pe with its brakes on for the 1st half, then off for the 2nd half once the Boffins could see what the Ap was doing.

This gave a final Ap just a bit out beyond Ike, which was perfect. Even better, it happened that Ike would be in that vicinity at the time so it only took a burn of about 5m/s just above Duna's atmosphere to set up a perfect fly-by.

Then a burn of 150m/s at the Ike Pe.

This gave DUCTTAPE a 250km Pe at Duna, from which it circularized for another few hundred. From there, DUCTTAPE rendezvoused with DUMBASS from the 1st Duna Flotilla and docked with over 3000m/s still left in the tanks. It has all this fuel just in case it has to capture back at Kerbin without touching the air, even though simulations pre-launched showed it could aerocapture there no problem. But there's always the chance the heat model might change before it comes home....

Once docked, it was time to check supplies. As it turned out, Sanie, Meglin, and Kerburry had consumed about 25% of their rations on the trip out, including several weeks in orbit prior to depature. But now with access to the supplies on DUMBASS, they had enough for nearly 6 years, so can hang out here even with missing a window for home. All the mulch accumulated on the trip out was pumped into DUMBASS to feed the greenhouses inbound on the NOMS module.

Shortly thereafter, the Ike MagSat (built for a contract) arrived and aerocaptured at 18.6km to give it an Ap out near Ike, its actual destination.

As it turned out, it had to make a full orbit of Duna before Ike came along, at which point a 174m/s burn gave it an intercept.

After a plane-change on the node en route to Ike so as to get into a highly inclined orbit, the Ike MagSat was soon in its highly elliptical orbit and running its instruments. It will take 137 days to complete this contract.

And now things started to get a bit hectic with 2 ships of the 2nd Duna Expedition arriving there and the comatose Ansen in DISCO from the 1st Duna Flotilla returning to Kerbin more or less simultaneously. All 3 needed aerocaptures so for a while the Boffins were worried 2 ships would need doing at the same time. But fortunately, things just barely worked out so they could smoothly jump from one to the other and do all that was required without any conflicts. However, the Boffins took the opporunity to look DISCO over and discovered that, as expected, the probe core was in the service bay so Ansen would have to be awake to land.

Once in Kerbin's SOI, the Boffins set up DISCO to get into an equatorial orbit. This would be some time after DUFF and the Duna SCANsat would enter Duna's SOI.

DUFF and the Duna SCANsat crossed the SOI boundary no problem and the SCANsat set up to capture into a polar orbit.

Then DUFF Aerocaptured. This thing had been a beast launching from Kerbin with its 5m rocket dwarfed by its massive fairing, but it had no stability problems in Duna's thin air. It came in at 18km and captured with a 300km Ap with a few bursts of retro thrust during the pass.

There was then enough time to park DUFF in a 65km orbit before having to deal with anything else. And shed the bulky fairing while they were at it, showing off the beast beneath.

Then the Boffins quickly had to jump their attention back to DISCO, which was by then well inside Mun's orbit. They adjusted its Pe to 42km and then burned retrograde during the 1st half of the pass.

Once again, the LV-Ns were the only things that got hot but not dangerously so. The result of this pass was an Ap 7.6Mm about 3/4 of the way out to Mun. The Boffins raised DISCO's Pe out of the atmosphere here to park it while dealing with the Duna SCANsat, which would be aerocapturing soon.

Once parked, the Boffins were quite surprised to receive a transmission from Ansen, reporting he had 4 hours of supplies all of a sudden. The Boffins were amazed at this, but the Scientists looked smug. Apparently, they'd slipped some Kerbal speed into his normal mix of atmospheric indoctrination chemicals. But the Boffins really didn't care. He'd run out again by the time he reached Pe so they still thought they'd have to send him a supply run in LKO.

But that could wait. Right now, it was time to aerocapture the Duna SCANsat.. This came in at 18.6km and needed a bit of retro thrust to capture with about a 1.5Mm Ap.

Soon, the DUNA SCANsat was on station and began scanning for Ore, biomes, and low-res radar.

At this point, nothing exciting was due to happen for another month and that would be the 2nd Eve Flotilla. The rest of the 2nd Duna Expedition was still several months out due to imperfect transfer burns. So at this point, the Boffins and Scientists both turned their attention to DISCO.

First, the Boffins lowered DISCO's Pe to 35km and aerobraked into an Ap of about 1Mm, from which they circularized it at 85km. And much to their surprise, Ansen was still conscious. Apparently the Scientists had given him another hit of uppers. (NOTE: I have no idea how this happened---I haven't tweaked USI Life Support at all). So after waiting for KSC to come into sunlight and having Ansen EVA to prove he really was still awake, the Boffins had DISCO's probe core de-orbit and separate the capsule. From now on, Ansen's survival was in his own hands, to open the chutes. According to Ansen's reckoning, he had about 30 minutes of supplies left.

And that was enough to pull the ripcord.

DISCO's pod was duly recovered from Boosterbottom Gulf and Ansen taken back to the labs. The Scientists were a bit disappointed to need anethesia to dissect him but had counted coup on the Boffins by saving them the trouble of a rescue mission, so considered this a fair trade. Now the Boffins would owe them one on some future mission.

Soon, Ansen was stitched back together and rejoined the ranks. All were surprised he'd gotten credit for flying on Duna during his aerocapture pass there, thus stealing the glory for that from the DORK's future crew.

Tune in next time for more stuff at various planets.

Edited August 11, 2015 by Geschosskopf

[Mister Dilsby]

Big update--and many kudos for having that much stuff in the air, with life support to manage. Planning on adding NOMS to my own save in time for a Jool mission.

[Geschosskopf]

Big update--and many kudos for having that much stuff in the air, with life support to manage. Planning on adding NOMS to my own save in time for a Jool mission.

Thanks . I love having stuff going on everywhere, it's kinda my thing. USI LIfe Support is a license to abuse Kerbals. As long as you have a probe core capable of doing the landing back at Kerbin, you only need supplies for the trip out and at the destination. Now, if you're planning on staying for a permanent colony, then it becomes rather more complex. The Gilly Lander in the 2nd Eve Floitlla is built with this in mind, intended eventually to become part of a fully self-sufficient colony.

As for having lots of stuff up at once, Jolly_Roger has recently surpassed my largest flotilla, but I did this back in day (and was still 1 shy of the biggest invasion armada I'd every heard of at that point):

This isn't counting SCANsats and Kethane-scanning probes at EVERY planet that had gone out long before, plus an involved mission to Duna. This was back in the .20s somewhere, before there was career mode.

[Mister Dilsby]

Message coming in from Mister Dilsby's little Eve flotilla:

[Geschosskopf]

Message coming in from Mister Dilsby's little Eve flotilla:

http://prod.static9.net.au/~/media/Network/NL%20Beauty/June/11/giphy%20(4).ashx

Thanks again, but none of this ever got there. I spent so much time designing and testing all this crap that once I got it on its way, the next update came out and broke it. I was tempted to keep it going (Brotoro showing how to manage the change) but whatever new ieatures were in the update grabbed my attention so I never went back to this.

[Taowulf]

I will admit that I just looked at the pictures.

[Geschosskopf]

I will admit that I just looked at the pictures.

Well, I hope you liked them

[B-STRK]

First, re: your Jool armada: my laptop just looked at that, looked at my copy of KSP, looked at its own specs and ran away screaming "NOPE NOPE NOPE NOPE NOPE"

I can't even begin to imagine the timing for the aerobrakes or maneuver nodes for a fleet that closely-spaced.

Second, perhaps coming back to Kerbin SOI gives a small NOMS boost? Okay, that was me reaching; I do know that NOMS are not tracked by USILS while in Kerbin atmo, so maybe there's something else in the code triggering the small bonus coming back in?

Other than that, welcome back home, Ansen!

[GarrisonChisholm]

This is *so* impressive. My engineers will not be able to look at themselves in the mirror tomorrow morning...

[Geschosskopf]

First, re: your Jool armada: my laptop just looked at that, looked at my copy of KSP, looked at its own specs and ran away screaming "NOPE NOPE NOPE NOPE NOPE"

I dunno. It's not so much the number of ships, it's how many parts are in physics range. Out of all those ships, only 2 or 4 would ever have been in the same place at the same time even at their destinations, and before then none were ever that close together. IIRC, however, that build or the next of KSP did start burping on me when I had more than about 40 flights, so in most of my games I'd periodically have a great purge when I started getting close to that number. I'd crash all probes and ships that had outlived their usefulness, pluck all but the most sentimental of flags, etc (debris being taken care of as it was created).

But later builds haven't had such problems with with number of flights, just number of parts (plus various memory leaks such as when changing scenes). So in the present game, I've still got scads of old contract satellites that don't even have thermometers on them orbiting all around the Kerbin SOI . And I deal with the part count issue in 2 ways: flotillas instead of miotherships, and SSTO rockets instead of asparagus.

I can't even begin to imagine the timing for the aerobrakes or maneuver nodes for a fleet that closely-spaced.

Sending an armada to Jool lacks any dramatics there. It's so far away that the slight differences in launch times and burn accuracies compound greatly. If you use 6-hr days, don't expect ships departing Kerbin within the same hour to arrive closer together than 1 month (so 1 week if using 24-hr days). And it takes about 2 months (6-hr days) or 2 weeks (24-hr days) for a ship to go from the outer edge of Jool's SOI to Jool itself. So you'll probably never have more than 2-3 ships inbound to Jool Pe at once, and enough real time between their Pe's that you could leave the game running at real time and go on a nice vacation in real life before having to deal with the next one.

HOWEVER, this week's sticky thread, showing what Jolly_Roger recently did at Eve, is IMHO truly awe-inspiring.

20-30 ships, by themselves isn't THAT much of an issue. But he did it at Eve, which is so close to Kerbin that there's very little spread en route, and its SOI is small to that all comes home to roost upon arrival. The biggest flotilla I've ever sent to Eve is 8 ships and that was a major hassle. I can imagine 30 but I don't want to experience it.

Second, perhaps coming back to Kerbin SOI gives a small NOMS boost? Okay, that was me reaching; I do know that NOMS are not tracked by USILS while in Kerbin atmo, so maybe there's something else in the code triggering the small bonus coming back in?

Other than that, welcome back home, Ansen!

I reckon you're correct. At least if you're not in space more than 14 days in Kerbin's SOI. But it's interesting that this kicks in after you've been away for a long enouigh to run out of supplies, and the timer was only going to Kerbin Pe and then resetting, instead of the full 14 days.

As to Ansen, remember that he was a Scientist grad student. So once he'd recovered from his post-mission dissectdion, he only had 3 days to prepare his thesis on the reactions of Goo to conditions at Duna, Ike, and between there and Kerbin. He'd planned on writing his thesis on the return trip but, unfortunately, had been comatose the whole time. Needless to say, the Professors were not impressed with his presentation so condemned him to another trip to get more data .

This is *so* impressive. My engineers will not be able to look at themselves in the mirror tomorrow morning...

Thanks, but I'm a know-nothing. I just don't let ignorance stand in my way

Edited August 7, 2015 by Geschosskopf

[B-STRK]

... As to Ansen, remember that he was a Scientist grad student. So once he'd recovered from his post-mission dissectdion, he only had 3 days to prepare his thesis on the reactions of Goo to conditions at Duna, Ike, and between there and Kerbin. He'd planned on writing his thesis on the return trip but, unfortunately, had been comatose the whole time. Needless to say, the Professors were not impressed with his presentation so condemned him to another trip to get more data .

I call that another day in law school. (which is really eating into both my post writing and mission flying time! gah!)

HOWEVER, this week's sticky thread, showing what Jolly_Roger recently did at Eve, is IMHO truly awe-inspiring.

https://oauchristians.files.wordpress.com/2014/07/wpid-wp-1404470708873.jpeg?w=208

20-30 ships, by themselves isn't THAT much of an issue. But he did it at Eve, which is so close to Kerbin that there's very little spread en route, and its SOI is small to that all comes home to roost upon arrival. The biggest flotilla I've ever sent to Eve is 8 ships and that was a major hassle. I can imagine 30 but I don't want to experience it.

I just repped it from the sheer awesomeness. That​ jawdropping.

[Geschosskopf]

I call that another day in law school. (which is really eating into both my post writing and mission flying time! gah!)

I don't often mention this (I'm trying to put my shady past behind me) but I went through law school myself. I feel your pain. And don't worry, it will only get worse once you graduate. Then you have to spend all day actually working with (and against) lawyers. Ugghh!!! Detestable people for the most part. The world will never become a better place until the last politician is strangled with the entrails of the last lawyer .

[B-STRK]

If it helps, I plan to be doing the strangling. (a.k.a., I do like to be a lawyer, but not that kind of lawyer )

I forgot to mention when I found out last time: KAX does have electric props, but they're designed to be radially attached (the profile's similar to a one-prop amphib with engine and pusher mounted above the fuselage). I don't know the specs (I'll probably install that prop for tests when it's time to build the Duna fleet), so I can't compare yet against my experiences with Firespitter. And it's probably too late for the DORK, but you might have an idea for DORK2. As an example, here's a guy from the KSP reddit that's used KAX electro props for his craft: http://imgur.com/a/PHLUx http://www.reddit.com/r/KerbalSpaceProgram/comments/3fkld4/the_bug_my_electric_flying_rover/

[Geschosskopf]

If it helps, I plan to be doing the strangling. (a.k.a., I do like to be a lawyer, but not that kind of lawyer )

So I said, too. The law is a fascinating subject to study. But because the law is power, it attracts the worst elements of society, the power-hungry and the zealous, in great numbers. Dealing with such people all day every day will destroy whatever soul you have left after law school.

I forgot to mention when I found out last time: KAX does have electric props, but they're designed to be radially attached

Hmmm. Well, that's sorta overkill for what I'm doing here. The smaller Firespitter version is fine with me.

[Geschosskopf]

EPISODE 13: Arrival: 2nd Eve Flotilla and More 2nd Duna Expedition

By now, the arrival of the 2nd Eve Flotilla was less than a month away. Given that Gilly Base 1 would need to be on a good spot for Ore and such, the Boffins decided to move the Eve SCANsat over to Gilly. Given that the SCANsat was already in a polar orbit, the Boffins waited until they could get in a Massé shot (for when the resulting trajectory is below the ecliptic) or a hook shot (when the trajectory is above the ecliptic). In this case, a Massé shot worked. Capturing at Gilly was a tad expensive but this just used the last of the transfer stage, the actual probe having beaucoup dV of its own.

Several weeks later, by which time the SCANsat had gotten the majority of its work done despite the obscenely low orbital velocities at Gilly, both SEPTIC and Gilly Base 1 arrived in Eve's SOI.

Both burned about 250m/s to capture into highly elliptical orbits to facilitate their plane changes. SEPTIC needed a fairuly substantial plane-change to get into an equatorial oribt.

Gilly Base 1 didn't need as much of a plane change, being nearly already lined up with Gilly, but once again its Nuclear Lightbulb engine produced gobs of heat that its 2 medium-sized radiators had difficulty dealing with, even for short elliptical capture burn. Hitting Gilly from a 50m/s burn on its 2nd time around Eve only cost about 50m/s.

While Gilly Base 1 was going around, however, SEPTIC was easily able to circularize at 150km after less time and promptly cashed a $1.5M paycheck.

Gilly Base 1, however, had to burn quite hard to stop at Gilly, so much that its own Nuclear Lightbulb had to throttle back to less than 1/2 to avoid exploding. The 2 medium-sized radiators again proved inadequate, but by taking things right to the brink, the Boffins were able to get it captured.. At which point the white-hot engine was ditched to allow the actual base to cool off prior to landing.

And after an excruciatingly slow descent, Gilly Base 1 was down and open for business. And it chased paychecks for nearly $2M, both for itself and exploring Gilly.

At this point, LLUDDITE finally arrived at Duna. It used a 16km Pe to aerocapture with a 1Mm Ap. It then rendezvoused with DUMBASS, ditched its transfer stage, and docked.

By now, the Duna SCANsat had figured out that Duna's Ore in this game was all in the Midlands, which made things a bit interesting. But everything going down in the 2nd Duna Expedition had been designed to land in such places so this didn't cause the Boffins much distress.

The Duna SCANsat then moved to Ike via another Massé shot.

And by then it was time for DUMB to arrive. This needed a 14.5km Pe to aerocpature with a 3.4Mm Ap out slightly beyond Ike. It's really strange how aerodynimics affect aerobraking/capture. I'd have thought this would have been one of the draggiest ships but it was the sleekest.

So at this point, the 2nd Eve Flotilla was done and enough of the 2nd Duna Expedition had arrived and accomplished their missions that landing can begin. Tune in next time for that.

Edited August 12, 2015 by Geschosskopf

[Mister Dilsby]

Nice Gilly base! Got a bit scared for a moment when I jumped from that photo to the ones of Duna aerobraking and thought "that madman! he's not sending one of those beautiful ship to die over Eve is he?!"

[Geschosskopf]

Nice Gilly base! Got a bit scared for a moment when I jumped from that photo to the ones of Duna aerobraking and thought "that madman! he's not sending one of those beautiful ship to die over Eve is he?!"

Wow, nobody has ever called any of my ships "beautiful". In fact, I often deliberately make ugly ships . I have vague plans for a future Eve prison colony but until then, nothing is touching Eve's atmosphere. I figure Moho actually has a better chance of being inhabited first now that I"ve figured a "cheap" and easy way to get there via Eve. Of course, first I'll have to make a return trip, too.

The Gilly base is all USI Mk-V components. The inflatable hab and greenhouse modules are quite useful for providing stability on Gilly. Without them, the main lander had a Hell of a time keeping all feet on the ground at once. I'll have to anchor it to the ground via KIS/KAS struts or something before I start adding on to it. If that ever happens.